Artist Diane Crane’s drawings and paintings will be the featured gallery exhibit at Viterbo’s Fine Arts Center, Third Floor Gallery, 929 Jackson St., with a special viewing during Viterbo Days Alumni Weekend, Friday, Oct. 11 from 11 a.m.-8 p.m. and Sat., Oct. 12 from 4-6 p.m., when there will be an artist’s reception. The exhibit will be displayed from Aug. 26-Oct. 30.
Crane, a longtime Viterbo art teacher from 1980-2002, said her entire life she has enjoyed drawing and painting. “My work is in relation to the world around me,” Crane explained. I enjoy trying to visualize and make pictures of the things I enjoy and see in my immediate world.”
“I draw plants quite close-up. Everything within my array of work is individualized,” she said. “I’m not sure I chose plants as a subject,” she said. “It’s just what grabbed me.”
Her favorite mediums are graphite with ink or charcoal and watercolors. Watercolors, she explained, can be easily misunderstood. “People think that watercolor is easy to work with. They tend to think of the paint sets that children often use. Crane explained how watercolors are not reversible. A painter can add another layer, but cannot delete the first one. “What you paint is there,” she said. “You can try and cover it up, but you can’t erase it, it’s always there.”
At Viterbo, Crane’s first teaching assignment was to fill in for an instructor. The course was called Color Theory. “Teaching,” Crane said, “Is a good way to learn something, too.” After teaching on a semester basis as needed, she was hired as a part-time teacher at Viterbo. She taught courses including beginning drawing, art history, and watercolor, among others.
“It was interesting to watch students learn how to really see and to observe,” Crane reflected.
She enjoyed her students and colleagues. “ We were a close-knit group,” Crane said. “I often had four years to really get to know the students. It made it easier for students to listen to critiques and grow from those experiences.” Crane said she cherished working with the Sisters, including Sr. Carlene Unser. “They were all bright, fearless, and so interesting,” she said.
Crane grew up in Austin, Minn., and went to the University of Minnesota, where as an art student, she concentrated on oil painting and print-making. Crane graduated in 1961. She married a fellow artist and Viterbo teacher Tim Crane and together they raised three children. Two of the three, Rachel and Damien, are Viterbo alumni. Over the years, Crane worked as a freelance artist, participating in art fairs, exhibiting her work at galleries, and conducting volunteer workshops, sharing her talents and skills with those wanting to learn more about the mediums and techniques she used.
“My grade school teacher used to reserve a section of the blackboard for me to draw on,” she reminisced about her youth in a country school. “Then, in high school, I had an art teacher who was encouraging and kind. I drew and painted things all the time. It’s been a one-track focus for me.”
Today, Crane and her partner live outside Houston, Minn. on a farm where they raise sheep.
